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Episode 225: Cognitive Distortions... Once More with Feeling
126 Plays6 months ago
CW: Mental Health
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the plan is for all the episodes this month to relate to important topics within Mental Health. We are also participating (along with other excellent creators) in partnering for a Mental Health Charity Event this coming weekend (May 18/19). Hobbes goes over the details in today's episode.
We are back (for the 3rd time) to discuss Cognitive Distortions/Common Mistakes in Thinking. We discussed this way back in Episode 69 about Davriel's "Entity" and again in Episode 148. May seemed like a good time to revisit, This article is used as the jumping off point for discussion and can be a resource to learn more!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Personal Update
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast. This is our second episode of the month of May. We took last week off. So we, well, I personally... We had multiple good reasons. So yeah, I was out with a, I had my appendix out.
00:00:21
Speaker
So Friday night, two Fridays ago, we were at my children's spring festival. And I was like, gosh, man, I'm just having some upper gastric pain. This sucks. I'll take some Tums. And it didn't go away. And the next morning, I pointed to this location where the pain had settled. And my wife said, you're going to urgent care. That is called McBurney's Point. And I am concerned that your appendix could be rupturing.
00:00:46
Speaker
And it was. Well, I mean, it definitely was inflamed. It was heading that direction. It is wild how quick things can move. I went to urgent care, got in for blood work, went over and got a CAT scan, had surgery, and was back home by six o'clock. Laparoscopic surgery is wild, y'all. I literally was back home by six o'clock in the evening.
00:01:11
Speaker
and falling asleep. But yeah, so last week, I was not really able to record.
Mental Health Awareness Month and Charity Event
00:01:16
Speaker
And you know, this being Mental Health Awareness Month, we really wanted to have topics that Taya, Alex and I have all really had in mind is ones that we wanted to work on. So we're gonna be hitting one of those today. Before we get started, I just want to remind everybody that this weekend, so if you're listening to this episode, when it drops, which is Wednesday of this week, so it should be 515.
00:01:38
Speaker
This weekend, the 18th and 19th of May, there will be running all day long. There'll be tons of tweets about it. It'll be posted on Blue Sky. It'll be in Discord's a community of cardboard charity event. So that's Beth's kind of umbrella term. So I'm working with Beth, with Davey, and then with Seth Cross, who I've worked on the mental health charity events before in the past. And we were running two days of 11 hours a day or 12 hours a day.
00:02:03
Speaker
basically noon to midnight eastern time both those days pods on top of pods on top of pods taya is in one of the last pods on sunday if i recalling correctly i believe so yes with draco from the discord and yeah i'm excited so taya is going to be playing i will be playing two different pods and then two things i want to highlight we are doing a four person quark off again so that is four people playing quark sakashima
00:02:34
Speaker
Last time in our two-hour block, so two years ago, I believe we got in seven games in a two-hour span. Because, you know, everybody go fast. And that's what we're going to do. So it's a really good time. We tend to get very passionate Clark Sakashima fans who like to donate money. We should be having some artist proofs of the cereal, the breakfast cereal, Clark and Sakashima have been donated.
00:03:03
Speaker
And then there's also a mental health panel with myself, Michelle, Cale and Feene Potter, Chase, Manicurves, and then Ivy, so Lady Fox Club, who is another psychologist.
00:03:16
Speaker
And the only one who hasn't been on the show yet, but so we might have to change that. So yeah, we will be doing a panel on mental health on Saturday. So check that out. Come check out my socials. I'll post everything there.
Recurring Topics and Cognitive Distortions
00:03:29
Speaker
So for today's topic, we are returning to something that we have actually talked about twice before.
00:03:35
Speaker
And we could talk about it more than that. That is twice in a four-year span. This will be the third time in a four-year span. And I would say, Alex, because you and I did this before, like every two years, we had 2022, 2022, 2024. We could go more often even on this.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah. And this is a topic that it kind of feels like we talk about more of. And at least I remember that being the impression last time, because it was like, Oh, I think we've just did this, but maybe we, and then we looked and was like, it's been two years. Let's just do this episode. So hilariously. Yeah. The two episodes, if you want to look them out, one is episode 69. Nice. That was Davriel's entity distorts the cognition. So we actually talked about this whole concept of Davriel having this entity that we didn't know much about. We still don't know. Really?
00:04:22
Speaker
We had it as a good analog for the mind. I think it is a fantastic lore tie-in.
00:04:27
Speaker
And then the other episode, Alex, was the one that was called What Even Is Time, which I believe you just hit the nail on the head on why. Yeah, well, and that one is a weird one because it's actually it was a solo episode I did trying to find something I could do on my own. And then you listen to it was like, well, how about I, you know, do something myself? So then it's both of us are in the episode, and it's roughly a normal length episode for that time. But it's like divided in half between the two of us on our own.
00:04:55
Speaker
Was that the one where I either did I do like a recap or did I actually do? No, you went through, I can't remember. I did a mindfulness exercise, right? Okay, cool. I thought I did. And
00:05:08
Speaker
What is time? So the topic is cognitive distortions or common mistakes in thinking are what they are called as well. And they are these stuff that through research and I think just through humanity are common traps that we can all fall into when it comes to our thinking.
00:05:26
Speaker
So we've been talking now for a couple of minutes. My name is Hobbs Q. We have heard from both Taya and Alex, but I am Hobbs. My pronouns are he him. And my question for us for today is what is your favorite cognitive distortion? So we're going to get into these and talk a little bit about more what they are and.
00:05:49
Speaker
In the meantime, we are all going to share one of our favorites. So for me, one that I do struggle with is, what would I say struggle with? This is one that is common that I tend to make sure that I am being aware of is a couple of them. So either jumping to conclusions, which is just, there's a, there's a lot that goes within that, but those are just kind of ways that we either make assumptions without full evidence or with not actual evidence at all.
00:06:15
Speaker
Um, the two most common are mind reading and fortune telling, which we'll talk more about that. So either, so either basically, I know something's gonna, how it's going to turn out. I make a prediction on it. And so then I act on that. So you predict like something is going to go bad. So you start making assumptions before you even get there. And then a lot of times that also then leads to that self-fulfilling prophecy. You get there, you don't, you don't act.
00:06:40
Speaker
confidence, you don't act however you want to act, and then pretty soon, sure. And then you use that as evidence. And then my other is the concept of kind of like a just world. So there's some fall into this, which is really this idea of you don't even call it like that. Some talk about like this idea of heaven reward, I don't see it as reward, but it's this idea that
00:07:00
Speaker
It is the idea of like the world is not always just. Oh, sorry. This is actually the fallacy of fairness. That things are not fair. Things are not just. Things are not equal. And this is one that can really lead to a lot of anger and resentment.
00:07:13
Speaker
So those were my favorite two off the top of my head and I will turn it over to my co-hosts. All right. Well, hi, I'm Taya, pronouns are she, her, they, them. Taya transcends on blue sky and I'm going to go with personalization because I always think everything is about me and nothing is, no one is good about making me feel bad as myself. So like,
00:07:38
Speaker
If something happens, it's it's my fault. It's always my fault. It doesn't matter that I have no control over the issue. It is my fault. And, you know, it's. There's just nothing I can do about it, but it's still my fault. Are you telling us there's nothing you could do about actually having that personalization or are you just explaining what it is?
00:08:06
Speaker
No, there's nothing I can do about having now. I was like, that was a really good example right there. Yeah. It's something that I try to work on, but I always end up in the same thing. It's like, I'll always assume that like, especially if I'm like, feel like I'm being left out of something, I'll assume it's because of something that I did and
00:08:36
Speaker
I've gotten better and better about asking why, if I think it's something that I did and having, you know, at least having like, okay, get a, get a reason and kind of challenge my own self assumptions. And that helps kind of fight back against this, but it, it always goes there for me is where I immediately assume it's something that I did.
00:09:04
Speaker
To round out the introductions, I'm Alex, found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him and I'm going to go with the one that in my notes I just annotated with big me energy next to it is catastrophizing.
00:09:22
Speaker
This is one that I definitely had identified as a tendency in myself by having these conversations. And I realized how much, how present it was. And that has helped me to at least identify when it's happening and try to mitigate my behaviors to some degree as opposed to is kind of we'll have a discussion. Like one of the things is when you're not realizing these are happening, these filters are changing your actions, changing your reactions and you're not realizing it and they kind of just perpetuate themselves.
00:09:51
Speaker
Even if you're still having it Like for me, I will still catastrophize at various times. I suppose I should define it So this is I was gonna ask because there's there's a there's a double reason This is another one that could kind of have a couple of different Subsections that's fair and there's actually a few like names for it too that I saw I just for me and this this ties of other things Let me define it and then I'll say why I like this particular name for it at least for myself. So this is where small
00:10:19
Speaker
There could be like small little things, maybe a couple small little bad things, and then immediately it's like, well, it's just gonna be bad. Today's gonna be a bad day. Nothing good can possibly happen. And this is a thing that happens.
00:10:33
Speaker
And Hobbs knows sometimes because I have mocked up a little meme image of Leonardo Leo pointing at the TV and just the caption of like, there it is, there's the cognitive distortion. And every so often when that pops up badly enough for me, part of me being aware of it and cognizant of it is to just send that picture to Hobbs in a DM.
00:11:01
Speaker
I greatly appreciate it. I have to go dig this out of my images, find it, send it. There we go. Honestly, I see magnification or minimization is kind of the inverse of it as different names for this. Oh, I just realized I'm looking at it the wrong way, aren't I? No.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, that is right. So minimization, I was gonna say, yeah, it's kind of the minimizing positive experiences. So you you pull way back from it. So you either, you know, like these ones kind of could talk about like either the microscope or the binocular effect, like depending on how you turn on the binoculars. But you minimize it is kind of that you positive experiences don't count for a reason, or they're not important. You know, so it's like,
00:11:52
Speaker
you know, like somebody when you do really well on a test and you really minimize that you got lucky. Yep. Yeah. And I'm really good at that one too. There's a lot that there's a lot of overlap as we go through these. Yeah, there is definitely bleed over. And that's, yeah, I personally I like the the term catastrophizing because it kind of makes fun of it.
00:12:15
Speaker
which was a thing that I found for myself, framing it not in a, I guess, making fun of it way, but in a more comical way, kind of a cartoonish or caricaturing it just a little bit was was something I did early on after being diagnosed with my social anxiety. Like as I started to kind of understand what it was, it was like, oh, so my brain has just decided that being embarrassed is roughly equivalent to being eviscerated by a sabertooth tiger. These are both things that require
00:12:45
Speaker
the same physiological reactions. And so by framing it like that, that kind of helped me to make it seem less insurmountable, because it's just kind of funny that way.
00:12:58
Speaker
So we kind of shared ours and gave some examples so people may have ideas, but we broadly wanna talk about what cognitive distortions are. So for you two, I'm kind of curious, what is your understanding of them? Like how would you define them or like, like how do you think about them if you do think about them? I mean, you're talking to somebody who thinks about them all like every single day, but well, for many reasons, anyway.
00:13:24
Speaker
I don't know. For me, they're like just common thought patterns that lead to, you know, lead to negative outcomes. They're like thought traps almost where you you shortcut how you're thinking and end up with a wrong conclusion based on a fallacy. Yeah, fallacy is another good word for it. Yeah. Alex, how about for you?
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, a similar kind of thing of it is just a bad pattern. So this is a weird...
00:14:01
Speaker
way to go, but for the couple of years before I dropped out at college, I started studying philosophy. And one of the things, the weirdest, strangest class for me to just be wildly glued into was logic, internal logic, which outside of being in that, you're not necessarily going to expect what it actually is. You're thinking it's talking about arguments. You're actually trying to... It's equations.
00:14:28
Speaker
You are just building equations with... You're not even looking at actual arguments. You're just like, if A equals B and B equals C, it's basically math. But it was framed in a way that worked really well for me. And so I think of it there. One of the things that I think about a lot with that, you have a sound argument. A sound argument is an argument where your structure is correct.
00:14:55
Speaker
a logical argument is an argument where your structure is correct and your base assumptions are correct. So you can have a sound argument such as the witch trial in Monty Python, the Holy Grail. That is a sound argument. Like this was brought up on day one of this class. That is a sound, is a surprisingly sound argument. Patently ridiculous because the assumptions are incorrect and thus their conclusion is incorrect. But I think of
00:15:24
Speaker
these in a similar way, where a lot of times, it's either a poorly structured thought pattern, or perhaps it's things that where the structure may be correct, but filters are causing the assumptions to be incorrect. And so in either event, you're leading to you're taking in information, and getting the wrong conclusions from that information. I like that answer your question. It does. It does. I mean,
00:15:52
Speaker
Broadly, they're patterns of thinking, so I think you both kind of hit on that. The idea that they're false or inaccurate, and that's not even fully actually have to be 100% correct, because the problem is brains are assholes.
00:16:06
Speaker
That's how I kind of tend to think of them. They are. They're full of weasels and weasels are jerks. They are. And they lie to us. That's why I loved your logic example, Alex, is it doesn't matter. Because your brain is treating it as fact. Your brain is treating information that may be highly inaccurate as a fact. And it's developed over years and years of this shortcutting.
00:16:32
Speaker
Shortcuts are great. Shortcuts mean that we don't have to overly think about – well, ideally, we don't have to overly think about every single thing that we do. Shortcuts let us kind of make decisions quicker, hopefully not agonize over everything. But we start making shortcuts in a way that is where we're attuning only to certain information, not the whole picture.
00:16:55
Speaker
even in logic, and that there is that issue, right, that too much of using the logic only brain is kind of ignoring the fact that we're emotional creatures. So you actually pull emotion fully out of it, you run into
00:17:08
Speaker
other problems. And so, you know, I have a lot of people that want to like fact their way out of things too. And that's why I think these are very difficult is looking at the facts as something that is helpful. It is something that is going to be, you know, getting objective information as best as you can. But if we rely only on the logic situation, we're also probably going to run into issues and we're always striving for that balanced kind of what I would call a concept of wise mind.
00:17:33
Speaker
briefly, but broadly, they are just habitual patterns. They are patterns that have become so ingrained that they are like automatic, you know, Hey, you gave an example, something happens and you automatically assume that it's something that you did. Like a bad situation happens. Your first instinct is to think you take some information and you jump to that because that is the habit. It is a short. Yeah.
Cognitive Therapy Approaches
00:17:59
Speaker
It's.
00:18:00
Speaker
You know, if you look at the art on the Millstone card, it's just the grinding into that pattern. You know, just shaping it like that same path over and over and over again. That is awesome. I really like that image. I want to, yes.
00:18:21
Speaker
And so we talked about this in story. We've talked about ways that we can look at the common thought patterns or the common thoughts of some of the characters. As we're going through some of these, we're gonna cover kind of some of the main ones. There's a couple of lists. If people are ever looking, and I'll put links to these into the notes. David Burns wrote a book called Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy. That's one of the lists. Aaron Beck, who is another,
00:18:47
Speaker
cognitive therapist, he's kind of seen a lot of times as the father of cognitive therapy. You know, I think we've moved to part of the third way, but I think so sorry. I'm now getting very technical. Basically, we've moved to a lot of stuff that includes elements like acceptance and commitment therapy and stuff that we've talked about on the show, like dialectical behavior therapy that brings in other elements besides just kind of
00:19:09
Speaker
challenging your thinking because we're acknowledging that true thoughts can still cause tons of problems for us. So you can take a thought that is 100% factually correct. It can still cause issues. It's more how much should we focus on it or how often does it happen?
00:19:26
Speaker
These were developed and we're going to kind of run through them. I, you know, I have the main list and I would like us to kind of just, you know, if you can, as we're thinking about these, think of, of if there's any characters that jump out. I know Alex, you've already said you got, we got Karn. Yeah. We got Karn. We know we got Karn. I think we've got samples for all of these. I don't think that's going to be too hard. I don't think either. And it's funny because it, you know, the, the Karn one always is going to be my go-to because well,
00:19:55
Speaker
He is canonically depressed and these distortions were really developed initially with depression. So yeah, so I'll start with one. Let's go with all or none black or white thinking. This is everything is good or bad. It's the extremes. There is no shades of gray. Either something is fantastic or awful. You're perfect or you're a total failure.
00:20:21
Speaker
I'm sure none of us have ever done this before. Yeah, this is one I like to go to. And not a character thing. And actually, I realized another episode we haven't done for a little while is talk about planning and New Year's resolution sort of thing. But this is quintessential causes, downfalls of New Year's resolutions, or even just plans of things like that.
00:20:46
Speaker
And some of that is a whole thing of planning, trying to build a plan that doesn't fail with a single miss, but some of that comes to the all-or-nothing thinking. As soon as you fail, you don't exercise that one day, you smoke that one cigarette, you do whatever that is, you're a failure immediately, and it's all over, it's all a waste, and it's like that. All of those days you didn't smoke a cigarette is all of that buildup that isn't happening.
00:21:15
Speaker
It isn't a waste just because you had one today or whatever, but that is a very common distortion. There's a reason it's number one on this list. It comes up a lot. I don't know if this is a top 10 list, Alex. Well, that's true. It's not over. It feels like it. It's not so much a... Worst top 10 list ever. But I think more of a just, when you're starting to write the list down, this is the first one that comes to mind is my...
00:21:44
Speaker
No, I actually like that. So this is the one that I would say bar none is the number one I see in kind of a veteran population. Mm hmm. Because and this is where we talk about the the whole thing with cognitive distortions are there may be times in your life where they were adaptive. They actually were helpful and healthy. And the military might said is a very black or white thinking.
00:22:10
Speaker
It's, it is, there isn't supposed to be gray because you're supposed to follow rules. And I was going to use Luca as my example for this one. Okay. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah. So this is, yeah. Like this is that mindset. So go. Yeah. Oh, he's Luca. Basically. I mean, it was very much you're with him or you're against him. You're right. Or you're wrong. Everything was.
00:22:34
Speaker
you know, it had to be perfect, or it was just worth burning down. It wasn't worth saving. It just everything was completely black or white with him. And he came from a sort of military tradition, the whole background. And then suddenly things got a little gray. And he didn't, he didn't like it know how to deal with that, or know how to deal with it.
00:22:59
Speaker
This one is one of my favorites to bring in other media to bring in the irony that is Obi-Wan telling Anakin that only a Sith deals in absolutes, which in and of itself is an absolute. Yes. So that's like an example right there. Who wants to take number two? I can take number two.
Exploration of Cognitive Distortions in Magic Lore
00:23:23
Speaker
So this is overgeneralization.
00:23:28
Speaker
The list you're going from? Yeah, I don't know what list I'm going from. Just pick one and we'll go with it. You've got two, and I think this is based on the way you phrased, because they both start with that save one. You're right. A lot of the lists do start with the all or none. And so does that, okay. So overgeneralization on here is taking one instance, generalizing it to an overall pattern.
00:23:53
Speaker
So this is, you know, you, you take, let's call it a very small sample size. The example they have is receive a C on one test, conclude that you are a failure and you can't succeed at a higher level. And so I think this, this feels like it dovetails a little bit. This one may be based on more information. You're like, well, yeah, this is, I have this proof. Like you were saying earlier, Hobbs, how a lot of these will.
00:24:20
Speaker
Because they're filtering how you're taking in information and they're filtering how you react, those your reactions often end up reinforcing those filters, whether the original information did or not. And that then sort of builds this body of proof that the original assumptions were correct, even
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah, there's actually a common cognitive distortion that I don't remember. Nevermind, I'm going to save this for the next one. Alex, as you were saying, has it overlapped with some of the all or nothing? I think the idea here is that you are basically making decisions based on experiences. They're just based on one or two experiences. And you're then assuming that it's a pattern. So you see one thing and you take a single example and then see a pattern in it.
00:25:13
Speaker
Do we have any characters that we can think of that like to overgeneralize? I can think that this feels like a... I don't know, I might have to say it's Seanan, but I'm going to say Nahiri here. Okay.
00:25:28
Speaker
You have one L drowsy invasion and you get all upset and blame everything and sore and try to wreck an entire plane over it. Yeah You do right? Yeah, we're doing a big stakes a lot of times, but yeah Planeswalkers are clearly the problem because of
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all sample size of issues. Yeah. Admittedly, very, very large issues, but it's all sample size. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, you can think of, you know, the, the, the, the Ravnikins, the Ravnikins, the Ravnikins? Ravnikins? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I recognize. You know, I like Ravnikins. I was trying to say where they're at. Okay. Number three.
00:26:17
Speaker
Yeah, do you want to do that one or I got I've just been excited I mean, I think I'm looking at a different list than you I'm looking at the one you linked in there because that one over generalization was Three on the other list. I'm gonna okay. I'm gonna do mental filtering and I'm gonna switch list. So yeah No, I'm switching to your list. You're good
00:26:37
Speaker
okay we'll all be in the same place we'll all be on the same place after this great we always do things perfectly in sync here at goblin lore especially when one of the hosts sends out multiple links for the same thing yeah yeah one of the hosts so
00:26:58
Speaker
This is another one that has two different aspects. And one of them is negative mental filtering, where you only focus on the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all the positive aspects. This is definitely so me. The example they use here is an employee receives a performance review and gets a good review, but gets like one negative comment and focuses on that during the entire review. Yeah, that's me. I will do that.
00:27:27
Speaker
I will get a really good review, but I will focus on the one negative thing that happened. And I will think that I did a miserable job and I'm a failure at my job. And it just, I have really bad imposter syndrome. So that is, that just feeds into that so much. You know, it's like, I'm not qualified to do my job. How did I get this far? How did I fool everybody that I can do this job?
00:27:55
Speaker
like this because it goes you were kind of like the disqualifying the positive which would be the other version of this yes where you basically reject positive experiences so it's a little different from the negative and that it acknowledges the positive experiences but then you basically explain them away right yeah or or or you make it into a negative well yeah they told me these good things but what they really meant was yeah and I'm just as guilty of doing that it's like I'll get
00:28:26
Speaker
I'll get positive feedback on a project and all I'll do is I'll refer to all the work that other people on the project do and like, yeah, you know, Paul did this great work on this part of the project and, you know, I'll make it like I did nothing positive on this project. Yeah. If there was any error on it, that's the part you had. That's the part I did. That's not good.
00:28:51
Speaker
So I'm going to take us into a very abstract take on this for the story because one of my favorite kind of analogies or ways of explaining mental filtering is to think of dropping a single drop of oil or a single drop of like a coloring, like a food coloring into a glass of water.
00:29:14
Speaker
And that single drop, the single negative event or the single, you know, you basically, it magnifies, right? It turns, it starts coloring all of the water. So basically, I really like this. It's like, when you start biggest on that one thing, pretty soon the entire image gets taken over, much like the phyrexians, which single drop. Which also ties to my story, Tyen, because this is rather hard.
00:29:41
Speaker
Oh, that's funny. That is funny. Who carried that single drop to Memnarch? But this is not, it's disqualifying the positive. Like, here's an actual quote from the Wiki that I think was taken straight from a story. But maybe this wasn't. But this is, Kahn created an Argentum, a plane of mathematical perfection. That sounds like Wikispeak. He sent probes to monitor Dominaria. One of them was flawed and became the Marari.
00:30:07
Speaker
Looking out upon the worlds, he found nothing but greed and death.
00:30:11
Speaker
blind as he was to the beauty of the worlds he found. Once again, Karn fell into depression and stayed muted upon his plane. This is, again, where- We've used this quote on this episode. Because Karn, as Hopps said earlier, is one of the few characters who specifically in text, not just our reading of things, but in the actual text of the story, suffered from depression, like had depression. Karn fell into depression.
00:30:41
Speaker
But this sentence before where he found nothing but greed and death, blind as he was to the beauty of the worlds he found, is where I think that tie is specifically added. So number four, jumping to conclusions, I mentioned this at the top with me with mind reading and then fortune telling. So the mind reading, like an example,
00:31:03
Speaker
This is the sites give some of these examples that I'm just so used to because they're to me they I use them because they work really well and one of these is you're Spend or you're you're spending time with a friend, but they seem distracted you jump to the conclusions It's something to do with you or I don't need one Like I would use the one like I'm at a GP or I'm at a Magic Con and I wave it somebody that I that I know and they don't wait back at me
00:31:28
Speaker
And my assumption is they're pissed at me or wow, what did I do? Or geez, they're just being an asshole to blow me off. But whatever it is, I'm reading their mind. I'm not finding out what is going on. I don't actually know the reasons that they are feeling that way. There could be lots of reasons, but I'm jumping to. Based on like said, so this is why I would say like it is based on evidence, right? Like the fact of the matter is maybe I waved at them and they didn't wave back. That is evidence. It just.
00:31:58
Speaker
isn't saying what I think it's saying. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where you're, you're taking one solitary data point, which can't really tell you one thing or another and assuming a whole lot of meaning behind it, assuming a whole lot of intent behind that one piece of data.
00:32:14
Speaker
you know, ignoring maybe their phone was in their hand, ignoring that they were, you know, there's a conversation with somebody or something like they're out look, they may have looked over you because they're scanning the crowd looking for someone so they didn't actually realize you were there, because they're looking for someone else. And then fortune telling is really that idea that similar, like I said, it's the one that you assume that something is going to turn out bad so you don't do it.
00:32:39
Speaker
Or you go and then you have a bad time because, and then you tell yourself, well, I'll say, I knew it was going to go that way because you're predicting the future. So we, this is hard because we actually have mind readers and magic, but just because they could read the mind doesn't mean they're getting the information always correct. You know, we saw that with the, uh,
00:33:03
Speaker
murders at Carla Manistory were, you know, it wasn't necessarily mind reading, but she was observing what was going on and getting everything, you know, getting things wrong. Yeah, yeah, gathering evidence, but you know, something else you're making bad. Yeah. Yeah, that's again, the solitary data points. And then taking this must mean this person acts this must mean this person why not understanding
00:33:31
Speaker
that there can be lots of context, lots of reasons for X given specific point of data. Yeah, and I think Nissa is a good example of both of these, actually. He's like, when Chandra goes off in planes walks to go look for a Johnny and stuff, and then Nissa automatically assumes that it's about her and Chandra's leaving her behind and everything.
00:33:58
Speaker
Then you know and then even when they were like first flirting with each other in the early time it's like it did you on the fortune telling example miss it was just like i'd be too awkward to go on a date with shonda or something. Yeah i think she was doing a lot of mind reading because i think that i think her thought was shonda wants somebody that's decidedly male.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. I'm never going to miss an opportunity. And Alex, that brings us to yours, to catastrophizing. Yeah, that is perfect. Which we are not going to do over the fact that this recording just ended. And we, this is, I mean, it didn't just end. No, no, no, we wouldn't. No, absolutely. And I'm not going to believe in curses after everything.
00:34:49
Speaker
This episode will still continue to be good. Good things can happen, even though negative things have happened. It's not all downhill now. Yes. So, catastrophizing to use the definition here occurs when the magnitude is exaggerated or diminished, as we talked about earlier with, as Hobb said, this is the one that I brought up at the beginning.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, an overexaggeration of thought or opposite of it, the inverse, or you're minimizing positive things. Yeah, definitely something that I am familiar with. I feel like it should be easy to come up with an example for lore, but I hope someone else did because nothing's coming to mind right away from me. So which side are we going with here? The overexaggeration or the minimizing? We have a character for either one.
00:35:40
Speaker
Try to think, do we have, do we have someone from? I would say that I think that there could be times when, I mean, you know who we haven't mentioned for any of this or any example yet, which blows my mind. No. Oh, well that too, but I don't know. I don't know. As much as I love my homeboy, his brain isn't. Well, I'll lie in the last story, his brain does think, but it's in a very non distorted way. Yeah. No, Gideon.
00:36:08
Speaker
No, yes. See, that's right. I lost my train of thought earlier and that reminded me. Because Gideon is basically taking on like, yeah, he expects every situation to turn out poorly.
00:36:24
Speaker
I will say he like I think we're well, I think we're gonna be able to use him more. I was a chalky hand come up because these are other kind of go-to within story. And I don't, this is definitely informed by the pictures next to the sections here.
Personalization and Labeling Distortions
00:36:39
Speaker
The picture for this one is a volcano in my mind goes right to Daragaz. Okay. Again from the invasion cycle who was like,
00:36:48
Speaker
friends with the weatherlight people and then all of the other major dragons sort of became a force and and then he decided that the only way to stop them was they were all they were all immune and immortal until one of them yes yeah until he offed himself yes threw himself into a volcano yes so that's where my brain went yeah yeah
00:37:17
Speaker
No, I would. Sorry. Obviously, who who minimizes? Who do we got that is kind of that doesn't really acknowledge their role? I mean, I know planeswalkers are all full of themselves. So yeah, it's it's a self selecting bunch for the most part. Yeah, I mean, some of it is the storytelling method to to get a little more better. Yeah, they're trying to tell stories about obviously, they're gonna have people with slightly different personalities and things to some degree, but by and large, if they're going to be the main character of a story,
00:37:48
Speaker
It's hard to have a character who is the main character who is trying to make themselves not the main character. It's just kind of what minimizing your contributions does. So I could see a Johnny falling into this. I could see a Johnny really trying to be the one who always is saying that it's everybody else on the team. Do we have somebody who's constantly
00:38:14
Speaker
Dang it. I had a thought and now I lost my thought. Lucky. Well, we can come back to it. I'm never going to find it again. Oh, yes. Thank you. Do I have to find the meme now? Do I have to... I owe you a DM? Yeah, you do. I realize we still have so many more of these to do.
00:38:34
Speaker
yeah we don't have to get through all of them no i think some of these go a little bit faster but uh it just happens to line up where i get mine though next by personalization you know we did not plan this we did not plan this at all i would say outsiders might sometimes think that goblin lore has a lot more intentionality and purpose well we do we have intentionality in our topics but in our actual planning oh no we
00:39:01
Speaker
We rely on coincidence. Yes. We are very goblin around here, and it just seems to work out for us most of the time. But what they give here is, when engaging in this type of distortion, an individual will take things personally, this will cause a direct and personal reaction to everything others do or say, even if it's unrelated to them. Self-blame for circumstances beyond your control also occurs as well, assuming you have been intentionally excluded or targeted.
00:39:29
Speaker
An example to give is you attend a party but all your friends are busy engaging with other people. You feel like they do not have any interest in being your friend and engaging in conversation with you. Boy, does that make me feel targeted. This makes you feel like you don't belong or unfairly excluded.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah, I don't feel unfairly excluded. I feel fairly- Oh yeah, you feel it's fairly excluded. Yes. Yes. That's why we're getting to some combos here. But yeah, I'm not sure, you know, what character this really fits because again,
00:40:15
Speaker
you know, we deal with main characters and this isn't something main characters don't tend to make themselves side characters. This is one that I think we've talked about where, you know, like I thought like imposter syndrome could be pulling on an element of this. So there could be some Tiana who we used for that that I could see.
00:40:43
Speaker
you know, with really getting pulled into the role and really feeling like that she was. Yeah, I feel like. Yeah. And explaining away any of her successes. Yeah. So I mean, we have. But I think that it's a lot of us would have to go to like the legend. Tiana was definitely a good example for the last one for catastrophic and minimizing. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You're a good one for minimizing. Yeah. Yeah. So blaming.
00:41:08
Speaker
This is one that Ugin tends to fall into a lot. So I'm just gonna get that out the map. I think this is bias here. You know, this is you are directly, you were absolutely turning this one around when this is 100% ball is here.
00:41:33
Speaker
Let's look at the example. Placing blame for relationship issues on your partner instead of sharing the responsibility for actions. Which could be your sibling. Yeah. Instead of sharing the responsibility for actions taken by both partners. You assume the victim mentality and think everything they do is to hurt you.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Ugin 100% believes that whatever Bolas is doing is to like hurt Ugin. You've read a different chronicle of Bolas than the rest of us do. Listen, when your older brother strips you of your naming rights.
00:42:07
Speaker
Is that pedestal? We're trying to conquer the multiverse. One thing, which admittedly, bad thing. One bad thing happens moments after they hatch, and then it's Ugin's fault for the rest of their lives. Well, you know, Ugin probably did some other bad stuff. He doesn't seem like a good big brother. I'm not sure he was a good role model.
00:42:33
Speaker
those those couple of seconds that slight couple of minutes he is not taking on that role very well
00:42:43
Speaker
Does this lead us into labeling really well? Is that just me? It's an extreme form of overgeneralization. When it occurs, you assign judgment to yourself or others based on one negative incident or occurrence or your name. Or you externalize it towards other people. Yeah, or you externalize it towards other people. Yeah, like labeling all of humanity as your enemy based on one.
00:43:09
Speaker
Okay. Minor incident. Are we really going to be on the side of humanity in anything these days? Have you seen the world? No, but. No one welcome a God. You welcome your God Pharaoh. At this point, we're doing a bad job. I contend Bolas did not label himself the God Pharaoh. I am fairly certain that was an earned title.
00:43:36
Speaker
I don't know. No, I'm pretty sure he's re-programmed society. And it seems to me that his ideal society are zombies and dead planeswalkers. I'm not sure where I fit into that image of society. Where you fit into today's humanities image of society. I mean, not a great place, but between those two choices.
00:44:00
Speaker
I have a third option somewhere crammed in the mail. Okay, thank you for saying there might be a third option, Mr. All or Nothing there. Labeling is a good one where, you know, instead of describing, this is one that comes up a lot with communication. This is one of the ones that I think tends to lead to a lot of communication problems, is that instead of describing somebody's behavior or what actually happened,
00:44:26
Speaker
you give them a value judgment or a label. So, you know, like people who play controller jerks. Yeah, right. So we know that's not true. We have enough counter examples of nice friendly people that play control. Wait, we may have been going different directions with this cognitive distortion. But I mean, I think it is. Yeah. Labeling is oftentimes that you're giving kind of a label without kind of explaining what that means or what that is.
00:44:55
Speaker
or the context to it. Again, this is that small sample size things. I don't like the rest of these because I feel like you all are going to just keep saying it's bolus. As I scroll down, it's like, okay, okay.
00:45:10
Speaker
Now, to be fair, I have another example for the next one. Hobbs, are you just mind reading now? You know what? I will tell people that I do engage in mind reading. Now it is based on, we know that that's the whole part of it. We may get things correct because I can know things about my co-hosts. I know a lot of things about my co-hosts.
00:45:34
Speaker
And I think that if the next one is called always being right, that they have biases, that I have seen revealed again and again. I mean, we don't need to describe this one in too much detail, and it is what it says it is. It's the pattern that you internalize their opinions as facts.
00:45:57
Speaker
and we'll put others on trial to prove their own opinions. Now. Well, I could say Bolas, but I'm going to go with Alice Norm for this one. That's what I was thinking. Thank you. There are lots of examples. This one I think I think is like half a magic. Yeah. This is also a good example of this one. Yes. This is a good trying to be a main character, sort of. Yes. This is a very much trying to be a main character.
00:46:26
Speaker
But as being wrong is not acceptable, which, you know, I think I was gonna say Lily on it with somebody else that I had kind of in this. Yeah. You know, this is like, I'm going to find a way to get out of this contract that I made because I'm right. Mm hmm. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, this is a very this is like you said, Alex, with with with fiction. This is probably really easy. Yeah. Well.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah, there's plenty of examples, but it's totally bullish. But I'm not saying it isn't. Well, we should move on where we don't have a lot of time left.
00:47:07
Speaker
Is this, I honestly lost track. We're on shoot statements. This actually is my other favorite. This is the other one that I have me energy next to. I think I have had my, I'm not seeing a therapist right now because insurance sucks and I lost my therapist when I last changed my insurance.
'Should' Statements and Emotional Reasoning
00:47:32
Speaker
but this is probably the one where when I have had a therapist that they've ended up correcting me the most on what I've, it's like, that's a should statement, that's a should statement. Yes, one of my favorite things to do is whenever I hear the word should is to just hold up a finger when I'm meeting with people. Once we've done it enough that they'll all of a sudden realize if I do that, they're like, wait a second, and they're like, I just said a damn should statement, didn't I? I'm like, you did?
00:48:02
Speaker
And so fairly self-explanatory, but the definition, this distortion, a statement, what if a person should, must to do, or shouldn't do. They're sometimes enforced on others or on yourself. They create a lot of pressure. They create, impose a set of expectations that are not likely to be met. This kind of fits into some of that all or nothing sometimes, or it's like, well, I should be doing this all the time. And then as soon as you fail, then it creates.
00:48:31
Speaker
So one thing that I really like to highlight with should statements is should statements also have this bidirectional nature. So should statements are ones that we oftentimes use for motivation that we turn inwards. And so when we don't lead up to, because no matter what, should statements are creating rules or they're creating a set of expectations that may not be met or not likely to be met.
00:48:52
Speaker
When we turn them inward, we end up with guilt, depression, disappointment, lack of motivation, all these issues. And then if we point them towards other people to what other people should do or how they should act, like big brothers should be fostering good relationships or be supportive of younger brothers.
00:49:14
Speaker
Bolas and Ugin, then these, when they're aimed at other people, we end up with anger. This is actually the distortion that is most associated with anger. Burned towards other people. And when it's turned inwards, we get, inwards, easy. Gideon. Yeah. Car. Yeah. Like, these are easy for those. Yeah, Gideon's. Yeah, Gideon's is easy. I think you could say most white-aligned planeswalkers would have this.
00:49:44
Speaker
Yeah, they want they say what other people should do and what they are. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll have some. Yeah. So it's it's others a lot. Also, and I'd say you'd have his own. I would say even Chandra holds it. She's always like I should be doing better. I should be able to control myself more. I should. Yeah. Yeah. Chandra is a fantastic example with where we had her in
00:50:13
Speaker
like the Phyrexian storyline, when we had all the stories of her working on just breathing and not telling herself she should be able to control it, which as we know is not Fire Mage at all. Control is not the ideal for that. It's how we express or use it. So yeah. Number 11 is weird. I'm gonna just say that. Number 11 is weird. It's emotional reasoning. I actually love this one, but it's a little bit
00:50:43
Speaker
difficult. It's where we use emotions as fact. So if I feel scared, we have already talked about with most of these cognitive distortions, Alex, you you talked about right, like your body treating in that fight or flight, everything from a minor inconvenience to like, actually, like somebody basically following you with a knife is the same situation.
00:51:04
Speaker
So you had that emotion. And you might not know why you felt scared, nervous, whatever, but that would become your evidence. Like, why would I feel scared if there's not something to be scared about? So emotional reasoning is where you're using emotions as a logic-based game, but you're saying that that is the truth, that that is a fact.
00:51:30
Speaker
So if I am scared, it is because there's something to be scared about. I might be feel lonely because I'm by myself and you know, my friends are off doing something. You assume then that no one loves you or wants to be around you because I feel lonely. Therefore, I must not be worthy of being loved. So you take that emotion and it becomes fact or it becomes the reason. I always find that one to just be a little
00:51:57
Speaker
odd. Maybe that's me. I definitely feel that one though. I did the example they gave. I felt that exactly like that quite a bit. It's a good explanation. This is when I was I've read it. Every time I go through this list, I read this one a couple of times trying to just put the pieces together. So I appreciate that that explanation of it. It makes sense like just have to kind of wrap my head around
00:52:25
Speaker
what these sentences are trying to say. I think that feels like, I don't know, the story you're talking about with Nissa, does it feel like that might be applicable here to some degree too? Is it felt lonely because Chandra left? Yes, I think that has that element to it. Yes, I do think you're right.
00:52:51
Speaker
I mean, I was trying to think of who this is one that like, what I would think of here is like any of our characters that are really I mean, this is where we probably get some of our more elements of Chandra, even though it's like this might be our our, our planes walkers who really are driven by emotion mind. So I'm trying to think of who else we have that is really that emotion minded, that that like, are read mostly red, red tends to be emotion driven more than other colors. I was trying to think of good examples from story of just like the very,
00:53:22
Speaker
I mean, this is where passion I think can come in, but this is to me where it would be. Control fallacies, these are ones that people oftentimes
Control and Fairness Fallacies
00:53:30
Speaker
know. You probably have heard of the idea of locus of control, so either we blame things on, so this is like, I always think of this like if something, if we do something bad, we have excuses for it or reasons for it. If somebody else does it, it's because they're a horrible person.
00:53:48
Speaker
So one example would be like, if somebody cuts me off, I'm going to be like, Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe this because I didn't see this or this was going on. And if somebody cuts me off, my first thought is what an asshole versus the internal. Yeah. Where you believe you have complete control of yourself and your surrounding.
00:54:10
Speaker
If you're responsible for the pain and happiness of those around you, if someone isn't happy, assume it's... Again, guilty. Yeah. I'm always responsible for everybody's happiness around me. If people aren't happy, then I'm doing something wrong. Now, here's where we get Squeak when he is the monarch. Yeah. He believes that he is responsible for the happiness of the entire Warrens. To the point where he wants to have a party for them for going like, you know, a couple of days without any goblin dying. Yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker
Which is a pretty hard thing to have control over. He almost got there if it wasn't for the Phyrexians. And at that point, did the goblin really die? I think it was just completed. You know? Yeah. Fallacy of change.
00:55:00
Speaker
Others should change to suit their own interests. This is why I don't know I don't do this one This is not one that I currently that I tend to so a lot of the fallacy ones are ones that I don't feel like you said Alex like the two lists when we're looking at them Mm-hmm that first the first ones are really more the straight from kind of the burns initial thinking some of these are more than we've we've kind of have added in later on Mm-hmm
00:55:25
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I can't think of anything for this except a cheeky shot at Bolas. Jesus, haven't we had enough of that tonight? Some of us have to sleep. He would be happier if all of the planeswalkers were just sparks and not people anymore. Wouldn't we all? No. What have the planeswalkers ever done for us? Provided us with story and entertainment and
00:55:54
Speaker
Like I'm just saying, if Bullis had won the War of the Spark, would we have had a Phyrexian invasion? Probably because he wouldn't, he would have failed in his plan to get rid of them. Well, who cares at that point, right? Like, I don't know. They needed planeswalkers. I don't know. They needed planeswalkers for their plan. But there definitely wouldn't be power lines on the old Westworld.
00:56:21
Speaker
That's true. So like there's other things and I'm just saying I think most planes if you ask them do you want Devastation from these weird Phyrexian things that like killed half of your power Which was not a God who will just wipe out your plane completely if he feels like it if he feels like it just like
00:56:44
Speaker
Like, be best, okay? So, what you're saying, Hobbs, is that they just should not get on his bad side. Right, which is really easy to do, is all I'm saying.
00:57:01
Speaker
He definitely doesn't make snap judgments about individuals and hold it against them for centuries. I think that the planeswalkers may have been a mistake and that things maybe could have been better if... If there was only one planeswalker? If there was only one, yes.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah, so we're we're dealing in Highlander. There could be right like, okay, the end game for this commence the end game a card, you would see is a bolus at one. It almost would have been we returned to his legends card, he would have returned to the meditation realm, picked up a book and just let you once we were gods, he would have been one again, he would have gone to the meditation realm and
00:57:49
Speaker
That's it. Sure, because that's what you do with god-like power. Yeah, I'm trying to think what was stopping him from doing that before. Yeah. It certainly wasn't the— No, it's not like he didn't have an empire of humans worshipping him on Dominaria or anything. On Amonkhet? Oh.
00:58:13
Speaker
And yeah, dude's had a good life. And then people keep stepping in. I think the problem is others, others had to keep interfering and meddling. And that just really pushed him over the edge. It really let him do a place of anger. See, maybe his thought was planes walkers should let me be on Amonkhet. I will stay on this one plane. And then the gatewatch shows up sticking its nose and other people's business.
00:58:40
Speaker
And he swatted them all like flies. Yes, but okay, I'd still be mad. I'd still be angry that they bothered to show up and I had to expend that effort. I mean, all I'm hearing is, however, in reality, not all things work out the way we expect them to. And we will feel anger and resentful towards those in life. He was like, I'll see a fairness for bullets here.
00:59:09
Speaker
Just saying. If we lived in a fair world, we would all be rewarded fairly. You're right. If I put it, and this one also fits into the idea like this is this one, the fallacy of fairness and the fallacy of the heavens reward. These are kind of similar ones, but this idea that like, things should be fair.
00:59:27
Speaker
a person who struggles with being low income might feel anger and resentment towards others who make more money than them, but they also might feel that they work just as hard as others, if not harder, and it can be true. And that doesn't mean that they're going to get rewarded in the same way. A lot of us don't. And I think that the the the the heavens reward fallacy that ties into this is if we lived in a fair world, we would all be rewarded fairly. So if we did good things, we put in hard work, you would get good things. Because
00:59:56
Speaker
Yeah, these last two just make me like these last two to press me because they're basically just like, sorry, y'all, like life isn't like life actually does suck. Yes. Right. I understand them. I do understand them. But I can also see like,
01:00:12
Speaker
These are two that are very, very strong and powerful because they can easily lead. This is why you not only want to challenge them, but that's why you're like looking at these other things that are important to you and value-based systems and everything, because otherwise you can go down some nihilism here with these two. I've walked a little bit down some of those pathways, but. No, I just, we had our quarterly like satisfaction survey at work today.
01:00:41
Speaker
I did not like how a policy was applied and thought it was not equitable. And I made that very clear in the survey. And, you know, I don't know, I think fairness should be more valuable. And that's the thing. That's the hardest part about this is right. It should be.
01:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think we could agree like from some philosophical level. It should. And yeah, this is where a lot of times we talk about the idea that it's not even the distortion or challenging it or not. This is what do I what do I do then with that?
01:01:28
Speaker
Right. So, you know, your, your, your option can just be to get angry at the world and say, screw everything and not put in effort, not, you know, just kind of give up quiet quitting. Yeah. That's the term today. Yeah. Or you can actually still be willing to speak up, even if it, even if you don't think it's going to actually work out, maybe.
01:01:53
Speaker
You're still willing to do it. This is where action, this is where we talk about the whole concept. This comes from that idea that it's our thoughts, our emotions and our feelings, our actions, our feelings and our emotions. Our thoughts, our feelings and our behaviors are all important because, you know, you can use some of these or you can actually still make healthy actions. And that's where we oftentimes end up. Bullus did it. Yeah.